


progress report: i am missing you to death

by smallredboy



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, early season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22091533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: "A man takes his sadness and throws it awaybut then he’s still left with his hands."— Richard SIkenHouse, after Wilson leaves.
Relationships: Greg House/James Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10





	progress report: i am missing you to death

**Author's Note:**

> title from _i slept with someone in fall out boy but all i got was this stupid song written about me_.
> 
> for hurt/comfort bingo, mixing the prompts "survivor's guilt" and "loss of identity". i'm done! i'm finally done! only 3 days away from the deadline!
> 
> enjoy.

It's ridiculous, but House feels like a part of him is gone.

He didn't know that he held Wilson so close to his personal identity, to his own self. But now that he's gone — now that he's gone because Amber is dead (and because he caused her death, however much it was in a butterfly effect type of way) — he doesn't quite know who he is anymore.

He trudges through the work day in a manner that is even more miserable than before. He goes all the way to Wilson's office when he's confused about a case out of sheer muscle memory, and he curses when he sees the office deserted and depleted. It being empty only makes his heart sink further into his chest.

He doesn't like to be cheesy, much less about his best friend, but… they  _ complemented _ each other, like pieces of a puzzle. Like he was the yang to Wilson's yin, or Wilson was the yang to his yin. Or  _ something _ . His life has always been better when he was around Wilson— that medical conference in New Orleans oh so many years ago changed his life.

And now he's back to square one while knowing how good it can be. 

A patient of his regains her sight, and he looks at her, and she looks at him.

"How do I look?" he asks, expecting her to say something, well, factual. Old, or attractive, something.

Instead, she frowns a little, an imperceptible movement. "You look… sad."

He looks sad. A blind woman regained her sight and that's the first thing she sees in his appearance. It's mind-boggling, but most important, it's right. He's fucking sad, alright. His best friend has left to  _ wherever _ else and he's just left with himself. And he's not a pleasant person to be left with.

So he goes back to his usual mechanisms, his usual distractions. Hookers, booze and drugs. You're just destroying yourself, Wilson had told him once. He didn't listen. Maybe he deserved to be destroyed.

In an alternate reality, he was the one with the flu and the medication and the perforated liver. In an alternate reality, he is the one being mourned. In an alternate reality, he is waiting for Amber at the bus. But the last two wouldn't happen, not really— no one would  _ really _ mourn him (empty words at his funeral, no one crying for him), and Amber wouldn't go through such an ordeal to find out what was wrong at the bus. She wouldn't fall onto a coma of near death, meet him at the bus, have to convince her to go back.

In an alternate reality, he swallowed his pride and agreed to go on a cab with Amber. In an alternate reality, he didn't take the bus. In an alternate reality, everyone's as happy as can be.

But no. He's in this reality, where Wilson left, where Amber's dead, where he's still very much alive, as much as he might not deserve it. He's living proof that fate and karma do not exist— if they did, death would have not taken such a young, bright woman. It would've taken the misanthropic doctor who does no good to anyone around him.

He wallows in it. He soaks in the self-hatred and the self-blame, he goes through work and at the end of the day he collapses into Wilson's empty office.

No one has been hired to be his replacement yet. He wonders how soon it will be. How soon he'll walk to Wilson's office and see another man there, judging him silently as if he's sleepwalking into Wilson's arms. And he is, sort of.

When his father dies, Cuddy comes in and tells him about getting a shot. He doesn't question it until everything goes black seconds after and he wakes up in Wilson's car.

He tries hard to mask his giddiness. His father is dead, and Wilson is doing his mother a favor. Right, right.

But maybe he has a chance… a real chance at taking back what he used to have. A happy existence, a happy friendship, a not so crappy life. He can make things as right as they can be in the middle of this mess, of this muddled situation that fills his hatred and his blame of himself more and more each day.

He smiles at Wilson, cocks his brow, even as he looks far from amused. 

Maybe it can all be alright again. He just has to earn it.


End file.
